Last night we were shocked to see that The White House was using its blog to tear into car website Edmunds.com over some analysis it did of Cash-For-Clunkers. To recap: Edmunds.com says the program was a gigantic waste with little effect. The White House disagrees.

Anyway, Edmunds is sticking by its analysis, and it put out the following press release:

SANTA MONICA, Calif.  October 29, 2009  Today the Department of Transportation and White House chose to respond to an analysis Edmunds.com released Wednesday that looked at auto sales this year and what sales volumes would have been had the popular Cash for Clunkers program never existed.

At issue is one point of the analysis showing the taxpayer cost for every incremental vehicle sold was $24,000. To be clear, Edmunds.com is not disputing the government's statements regarding total voucher applications, vehicles sold or voucher values. The key question is how many of these sales would have occurred anyway.

Apparently, the $24,000 figure caught many by surprise. It shouldn't have. The truth is that consumer incentive programs are always hugely expensive when calculated by incremental sales  always in the tens of thousands of dollars. Cash for Clunkers was no exception.

The White House claims that our analysis was based on car sales on Mars and that on Earth, the marketplace is connected. We agree the marketplace is connected. In fact, that is exactly the basis of our analysis.

What do university parasites know about business? Nothing. BO does not have a single czar with a business background and it definitely shows in all these idiotic spending programs. Good for Edmond’s for pointing out that they are experts in this area, not Emmanuel, Axelrod and Co.

You may be right. The lefties at Morning Joe are already beginning the spin. Larry O’Donnell said something to the effect that it’s impossible to keep the momentum of 06 and 08 and that losses are expected.

Bottom line is, once a party gets in power, they forget why they were elected, and start trying to get their fill from the public trough. The Republicans did it, and it led to what happened in 06. Now it’s the Democrats turn to get a beating.

But they never learn. The Republicans, once in power, will behave as badly as the Democrats are now.

11
posted on 10/30/2009 6:56:24 AM PDT
by brownsfan
(The average American: Uninformed, and unconcerned.)

“How dysfunctional do you have to be to add a automobile enthusiasts website to you enemies list?....”

As I’ve stated before: Liberalism is an insidious and invasive mental disease with no known cure....worse than any cancer. 30 years ago, these morons would be locked up in a state institution undergoing “shock therapy”. Now, we have them in the highest office of the land. They’re extremely irritable, unpredictable, thin-skinned, dangerous and waaaaaayyyyy beyond any modern medical help. In some societies of the world, they call them: IDIOTS.
Does that help?

But wait its not over... If I remember correctly the $8000 incentive to by a house will run out at the end of November. One would expect the real estate market to react with a big dip after that. Again this will be timed to the winter months which are traditionally the slow period. Large good which sales are often tied to house sales, ( new appliances and such) should also see a dip. 4Q09 and 1Q10 are going to be messy.

If the program cost $24,000 per car and the max payout per car was $7,500 if I remember, where did the $17,500 go?

What they mean is that only a small portion of the car sales were “stimulated” by CfC. Without that payout, those (few) sales would not have occurred. The vast majority of sales were to folks who would have bought soon anyhow, so the CfC money just sweetened the deal they already planned to make.

So, if you spread the cost of the program over the number of sales that would otherwise not have been made, it comes out to $24,000 per sale.

Total $$ of incentives)/(incremental car sales over those that would have been bought without the incentive)

In other words, people who were going to buy a car without any incentive received an incentive even though they were going to buy a new car anyway. Those $$ did nothing to increase car sales.

The cost of a real brought forward car purchase is a major multiple of the incentive plus it takes sales from the next quarter. Most sales people know that end of quarter discounts mean that they are going to be behind the 8 ball in the first month or so of the next quarter. Incentives only work where there is significant pent up demand and/or there is a possibility of shifting the entire demand curve to the right.

The presumed goal was to drive sales to more efficient vehicles. However, the savings from increased fuel efficiency of a newer vehicle are of marginal value. For someone driving 12000 miles per year, the difference between 20 and 30 mpg amounts to 200 gallons of gas per year or between $400 and $600. Taxes on a new $15000 car in Massachusetts are $750 plus the increase in excise taxes plus immediate 30% depreciation!! People are not as stupid as the government “experts” think we are.

N.B. Note that if you drove more miles per year the savings would be greater -— BUT you would probably have to buy a reliable car sooner anyway.

I have a rule of thumb that 10% of any population are really gullible (higher if you are a greenie). The Edmund’s analysis indicates that I am just about right.

This is another really, really stupid “green inspired” policy. I am betting that the suckers (i.e., those lured into buying a vehicle by the incentive) were primarily tree-huggers.

I guess if you ran an op-ed mildy critical of Barry in the Eephus County Farmer’s Reporter, Pennysaver and Gazette, that someone in the White House war room is going to find it and start unloading on you.

I predict this is going to backfire big-time. Americans have no stomach for petty political bullying 24/7/365.

But they never learn. The Republicans, once in power, will behave as badly as the Democrats are now.

That's why we need to follow the NY23 lead and vote for the conservatives, regardless of what party they are in. Work our tails off trying to get conservatives nominated instead of RINOs, otherwise we will be no better off, this is apparent in the mouthings of McCain, Romney, Snow and the like. They want the same thing Bozo wants: The subjugation of the American people.

44
posted on 10/30/2009 9:41:17 AM PDT
by calex59
(We want our constitution back, and we will get it back.)

It’s way worse than that. Ignore all the gas crap and just look at how the stupid car buyer got taken to the cleaners:

If you traded in a clunker worth $3500, you get $4500 off for an apparent “savings” of $1000.

However, you have to pay taxes on the $4500 come April 15th (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1350 on that $4500.

So, rather than save $1000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the Feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for. Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.

But wait; it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer. For example, every dealer here in LA was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies, including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the “cash for clunkers” program started.

When “cash for clunkers” came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3000 more than you would have the month before... (Honda, Toyota, and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).

So let’s do the final tally here:

You traded in a car worth: $3500
You got a discount of: $4500

Net so far +$1000
But you have to pay: $1350 in taxes on the $4500Net so far: -$350
And you paid: $3000 more than the car was selling for the month beforeNet -$3350

We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan, but let’s just stop here.

So who actually made out on the deal? The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4500 they “gave” you. The car dealers made an extra $3000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies. The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before. And the poor, stupid consumer maybe got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.

Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4500 in “free” money from the “government” when in fact, Joe was giving away his $3500 car and paying an additional $3350 for the privilege.

Think this was stupid for those who were crazy enough to swallow this wonderful scheme?

Just wait until we get health care with no additional costs over what most of us now pay for health insurance and the best medical care in the world. Think that scheme might be designed by the same people who came up with “Cash for Clunkers?”

*I guess if you ran an op-ed mildy critical of Barry in the Eephus County Farmers Reporter, Pennysaver and Gazette, that someone in the White House war room is going to find it and start unloading on you.

I predict this is going to backfire big-time. Americans have no stomach for petty political bullying 24/7/365*

Yet, this is the same course of action many here suggested that the previous administration should take in regards to its critics.

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